“Where’s the light?” asked Carly as I showed her the $80 Kindle ereader that had arrived just half an hour before.

“No front light,” I explained. “This is the basic model.”

The good news is that in some ways the new $80 Kindle E Ink basic ereader is much more than basic. At 5.7 ounces and 6.3″ x 4.5″ x 0.36″, it’s lighter and smaller than every other Kindle except for the $290 Oasis, and the Kindle’s Bluetooth can transmit text to speech even if it comes with a serious catch. Screen resolution is only 167 pixels per inch, compared to 300 for other models, but it’ll do.

I see major K-12 and library potential here if Amazon will just make a few improvements beyond the color choice of black vs. white (I chose the latter).

The bad news part is the usual one in our household for Kindle E Ink devices. I don’t know what the contrast ratio of the six-inch screen is, but for my wife and me, the view is wanting by the standards of LCD devices and front-lit Kindles. You may disagree. Carly and I are both baby boomers with contrast-sensitivity issues, a condition suffered by more than a few seniors. But the problem is not limited to people our age. If nothing else, think of K-12 kids with contrast-sensitivity issues piled atop dyslexia or another challenge. Their brains will have to work harder than ever to process the information.

If Amazon wanted, however, it could mitigate the perceived contrast problem with an all-text bold option. When I tried the $80 reader in a kitchen with bright fluorescent lights and called up an all-bold copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, the view was actually acceptable. Notice the difference between the bold and no-bold photos? The editions of The Count aren’t the same, but that should not matter in terms of the point I’m making. Also keep in mind that the lighting for the nonbold shot was better, and that photographs can exaggerate contrast–that’s what both photos do. See another, more meaningful contrast comparison between bold and no bold, using the Paperwhite and the Oasis.

Again and again I’ve pointed out that Kobo ereaders offer a variety of built-in typographical styles, including all-text bold. Are Amazon’s programmers so backwards that they can’t do the same? Same for the company’s so-called interface experts? Would a menu page for advanced typographical options be that much of a challenge to include?

I went on to test the text to speech, available via Bluetooth, as opposed to the need for a plug-in sound card, the case with the add-on TTS for the latest generation of Paperwhite. The Kindle’s Bluetooth worked just fine with a Vizio soundbar. However, I found the included female voice to be cruelly annoying. The pitch was too high, the speech too robotic—a stark contrast with Amazon’s better voices and especially with the “Peter” voice offered by Acapella.

Hear the voice for yourself. While I found it to be insufferable, you’re welcome to disagree. Maybe “Sali,” or whatever her name is, would be just right for little kids. I’m not so sure about adults.

Regardless of the voice’s shortcomings, at least as I perceived them, I’d hope that blind people would appreciate this feature. But as a sighted person I have reasons other than the almost-prepubescent voice to hate the basic model’s TTS. It’s a hassle to switch back and forth between TTS and none (too many screens). Furthermore, I had to double tap to make menu selections and found this to be distracting. Blind people should count most of all, and the double tap option and the rest should be there for them. But Amazon really, really doesn’t give a squat about other people who want or need TTS. While in general Amazon is customer-centric, that description certainly doesn’t apply here. Just where the devil is a mode for sighted people with vision impairments?

More than ever, I’m rooting for Hillary Clinton to win and for the composition of Congress to change dramatically, so that federal regulation comes back into fashion. Amazon is begging for it. It should be criminal, criminal, criminal not to offer different TTS modes for blind people and sighted people with their own special needs. Why isn’t this omission a crime? D.C. needs to kick ass. Jeff Bezos is deaf to pleas from me and others.

Just by way of the very existence of the $80 reader with TTS, Amazon has unwittingly shot down the arguments of industry lawyers who claimed to the FCC that TTS would be too expensive to include in E Ink devices. Now the FCC needs either to stand up for sighted people with vision impairments or else write a memo to Congress recommending the modification of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act to reposition the Kindle as an “advanced communications service.” Then maybe we’ll finally get sufficient typographical choices and TTS for all—as opposed to letting Amazon’s marketers prevail over the needs of people with vision impairments.

Am I angry? I’d be irrational not to be. At the same time I won’t let Amazon’s callousness toward people with my particular needs prejudice this review in a nasty way. The $80 Kindle may be terrific for you. It isn’t just small, light, well built; it’s rich in features such as page flip and vocabulary-building capabilities, so perfect for kids. Furthermore, like other E Ink machines, this one won’t keep you awake at night after exposure to blue light (in this case, hardly a problem when there is no built-in illumination of any kind). It lacks the multimedia distractions of cell phones and tablets. What’s more, you’ll enjoy access to what is by far the best inventory of ebooks of any retailer—with so many prices more reasonable than those of rivals. And, yes, this one has a Web browser through which you can download books directly. I believe Amazon’s claim of batteries lasting weeks. Also, the memory of 4GB can hold thousands of books.

If Amazon can address the font and TTS issues and ideally knock a few dollars off the price in time, this model could excel in general as a K-12 and library device, just as I said earlier. So here’s a conditional recommendation even if the conditions have unavoidably made up most of my post. My goal here is not to hurt Amazon; rather, to give it some tough love. This is not an issue of shareholders vs. nonshareholders. If Amazon follows my suggestions, which would cost next to nothing to implement when we consider the Kindle’s sales volume, the company will be still more competitive in the ereader market and make Jeff Bezos and friends more money.

Tip: As soon as your new basic Kindle arrives, see if a software update is available. Home > Gear > All Settings > Three Vertical Dots on the Right> Update Your Kindle. It one isn’t available, Update will be grayed. I myself found an update awaiting me.

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Published by David Rothman

David Rothman is the founder and publisher of the TeleRead e-book site and cofounder of LibraryCity.org. He is also author of The Solomon Scandals novel and six tech-related books on topics ranging from the Internet to laptops. Passionate on digital divide issues, he is now pushing for the creation of a national digital library endowment.
View all posts by David Rothman

I didn’t find the voice as irritating as you, but the speaker had too many sibilant sounds (ssss). And a high pitch isn’t good for those older, particularly men. My hearing now cuts out at 8.2K, so some women and children are now hard for me to understand. All TTS speech voices need to be pitched low and it would be good to have several voices to deal with various hearing disabilities. One of my sisters has a “cookie bite” hearing problem. Low and high pitches are fine. She just doesn’t hear mid-range voices.

I can’t let this pass:

“More than ever, I’m rooting for Hillary Clinton to win and for the composition of Congress to change dramatically, so that federal regulation comes back into fashion.”

To state the obvious, regulations come from the executive branch and thus Obama, with executive orders from him substituting for legislation at a scale unprecidented in our history. They have been pouring out of the federal government in such quantities that eight of the ten wealthies counties in the U.S. are in a beltway around D.C. That’s how many well-paid people there are administering them. And keep in mind the reason this Chicago-machine administration issues so many regulations. It makes money by not issuing or not enforcing them. That’s the Chicago way.

Do you ever read the news? Regulation has run amuck. Universites are being forced to conduct star chamber-like “trials” after drunken sexual hookups, with no lawyer allowed to defend the accused male and no right to compel testimony or gather evic=swbxw. High schools are being forced to have males, with all the relevant plumbing hanging out, into girls locker rooms. Regulation has clearly been “into fashion” at an almost insane level.

And “rooting for Hillary”? That’s utterly insane. I can remember back to Eisenhower, and there’s no one in politics that I can recall who has had their political actions more up for sale. Even her hubby wasn’t as greedy as she. Those $250,000 to $350,000 speeches she made were in-advance payoffs to her to ensure that our financial, investments, and banking systems get no investigations and no regulation.

And here you come trotting along thinking Hillary will be eager to pass a few minor bits of regulation you like. You want to know how likely that is? Put your net assets along those of Jeff Bezos. Put you little Teleread alongside Amazon. With Hillary, the one with the most money wins. What do you think your chances are? Less than nothing.

And finally, I can’t help but note the irresponsibility of taking an incredibly minor issue, one easily remedied by buying virtually any tablet rather than insisting that Amazon epaper readers must have bold type, and using that to drive your voting. IT’s a bit like the dunce at the NY Times who thought Obama would make a great president because his pants were creased.

Look at all of North Africa and the Middle East. The death toll in Syria alone is approaching a half million. North Africa is in total chaos. Now do a little recalling. In 2009-10 (i.e. just after Bush), trends across the Muslim world were going so well that Obama and Hillary (as Secretary of State) tried to take credit for them.

Bengazi was clear evidence all was going bad. Hillary’s failure to protect our embassy staff there after hundreds of requests for assistance was because acting would have signaled those troubles on the eve of the election. She’d rather see our ambassador and members of his staff die, as indeed they did, that admit her failures. She isn’t merely evil, she is creepy evil.

Try doing something different. Ask yourself some questions. Try naming any region on the planet where foreign affairs have gotten better under Obama, half of whose presidency had foreign policy conducted by this Hillary you want in the White House so you and your wife can have a bold font on your epaper Kindle. You can’t name a single region that hasn’t turned dreadfully for the worst. The Arab world, Eastern Europe, Iran going nuclear, and China’s threat in Asia.

Look at the specifics. Hillary wanted a “reset” with Putin, improving a troubled relationship that she claimed was due to those bad Republicans. Putin sneered at her, occupied half the Ukraine, and began to threated the free countries in Western Europe.

I can’t understand your reasoning. Are you really so clueless you think regulation has declined under Obama? Are you blind that both Obama and Hillary sell policy to the highest bidder? Hillary’s corruption has been documented well back into the 1980s. Obama spent 20 years in the politics of the most corrupt city in the country and never ruffled the feathers of a single crooked meter maid.

Worst of all, are your standards so devoid of compassion that you think it’s OK for the world to go to hell and our country to further acquire the corruption of a banana republic as long as you get that bold font for your epaper Kindle?

That’s pitiful.

And keep in mind the core reason why Hillary avoided prosecution for her hideous security lapses. She’s simply too stupid to understand what any State Department filing clerk would quickly pick up on. And yes, I know there’s a hideous double standard at play here. That filing clerk wouldn’t be allowed to plead stupidity and get off like Hillary has.

@Michael: Big thanks for a reminder of your need for different voices. Great idea! It isn’t just a matter of taste—it’s a core accessibility issue. As for Hillary, Obama, regulations, etc., keep in mind that there are stupid regulations and good regulations. Accessibility-related ones tend to fall in the latter category. Amazon on its own has thumbed its nose at sighted people who could benefit from TTS–including those with dyslexia and other disabilities. Not to mention Amazon’s failure to include a wider range of fonts, all bold, etc. Shame, shame, shame on Bezos. I say this while appreciating the way he has talked back to The Donald, and while appreciating his and Amazon’s other positives.

@Quentin: Hillary comes with her flaws, but they’re hardly at the level of Trump’s. Yes, for nonDRMed books, Calibre works. I use it myself. But how many typical users want to mess with it? Back to Hillary. At least she’s in favor of some copyright reforms (even if I’m still awaiting the one most meaningful to Chris Meadows, countless others, and me—the ability for people in the U.S. to remove DRM legally for noninfringing purposes).